


The Trouble Is Me

by hariboo



Category: Wolf Lake
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Flip is coming, it’s been coming for weeks. </p>
<p>And now it's here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble Is Me

The Flip is coming, it’s been coming for weeks. Months really. Sophia has felt it in her bones, in her skin, in her dreams. She’s smelled it on herself. Only the scented gels she now uses hide it from her dad when she wakes up sweating in the middle of the night; the feel of her animal clawing out of her pores. 

She’s not sure how her dad doesn’t notice. Maybe he doesn’t want to. He’s loyal to her mom’s memory and she wishes she could be as loyal, but every night there’s the forest in her dreams. Luke’s voice whispering to her to join him. 

And she’s wanted to. She’s tired of her half life. Half waiting, half fearing, half human, half not. So when the Flip starts to come she’s glad for it, even as she watches Sarah stuck in the between stages of it. It’s haunting, but more than that it lets her peek at it. The change is scary, it’s painful, but the waiting is worse. 

It’d be better when they all know, she thinks to herself. Everyone would know who she is, maybe she would know too. She’s glad for the change, when it starts. Until she’s not.

Her heart is beating too fast, and she can still hear the crunch of Luke hitting car. She knows she wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. 

That’s the worst part of living in the limbo that is her town. 

She knows too much, but isn’t part of anything. 

She’s in limbo herself. 

And then she’s pulled under. 

-

“Dad, help me,” she cries, her eyes going wolf as she collapses in the station’s bench. Even with her changing eyesight she sees the fear on her dad’s face. 

Now she gets why he didn’t want her to Flip. 

Now she–

_Screams_.

-

The smell of her dream forest mixes in with the her sweat. Her body bends on her bed and she can’t remember getting there from the station. She can hear her dad. Not his voice, though he’s speaking – Sherman, he’s speaking to Sherman. Harsh whispers and rude words. No, she can hear his heart and his ragged breath. She can smell how scared he is. 

It coats him. 

She wants to talk to him, say anything, but what escapes her mouth is a low inhuman sound, her vocal cords changing, ripping apart and reshaping. Her mouth feels different. Her legs bend–

Sheets rip under her hand–

“Maybe we should call–”

“We are _not_ calling any Cates, Sherman.”

Sophia snaps to attention at the name. Lucas. A brown wolf in her dreams. She’s pale in her dreams, but there’s only one pale one allowed in the Pack. That’s what the legends say. 

Blinking, she turns, curling into herself, and catches sight of her dad. He looks so scared as he ignores whatever Sherman is telling him and moves to kneel by her bed. Brushing her hair away from her face, he kisses her forehead. 

“Daddy,” she wants to say.

Her spine cracks and Sophia can only cry out.

-

She smells Luke at one point. He smells like forest and beer. He also smells like sadness and–

Her dad hovers and wipes her brow. His heart is still beating too fast, he smells like fear more and more–

Sherman smells like the forest too. Different than Luke. Older, like the deepest part of it, like the forest right before the sun rises. She doesn’t know how she knows that smell, but something inside her does. Her wolf is–

running, growling, hunting–

Her bed's soaked through. Her sweat is musky, grimey, and fills her nose. The detergent they’ve used since her mom was alive makes her want to throw up. 

Someone is picking her up – daddy? – and there’s cool water on her skin— 

Her skin stretches tight and then constricts– her bones change, crack, snap, shift–

Luke was right, it hurts like hell. It hurts more than hell. It’s more that pain, it’s more than hurt, it’s becoming–

Her dad and Sherman are arguing about something she can’t hear – only their hearts – when she smells Luke again. His hand by her face. 

Everything hurts, everything everything everything– her soul is ripping apart and coming back together–

“Daddy,” she wants to say.

Instead she– (screams?)

No–

-

Sophia howls. 

It echoes through her bedroom, through her house, through the Pack. It vibrates in her bones, in her heart, in her soul.

She howls and suddenly she feels whole.

Panting, she stays on her bed and lifts her head when she feels her dad move closer. His hands are shaking. She wants to tell him it’s okay. That she’s okay.

“I know, sweetie,” he says, and she whimpers in confusion. 

“It’s okay, baby. I know. I can hear you.”

That’s when she hears the other voices– PackPackPackPack–Sherman-Lucas–Dad.

“You’ll learn to block them out, Soph.” That’s Luke. He’s just rushed into the room. 

“Yeah, you’re gonna be okay,” her dad says, stroking her hair. No, not hair– Her fur. 

Her fur.

She’s changed. She’s Flipped. All she wants to do is sleep.

“Sleep all you want, sweetie. Just relax and you’ll change back.”

Sophia growls in understanding and the change back is smooth, painful, still, but smooth. Sophia's exhausted. 

-

The next morning she wakes up and feels new? Different? Definitely not the same. 

Looking in the mirror she blinks because her eyesight is better, her hearing is– 

Her dad is making coffee downstairs. Luke is also there (that surprises her), the neighbours sprinklers have just gone on, and the bus is on it’s way. Shaking her head, she focuses back on where she is. Her body hurts, but like it does after the rare run she takes. 

Looking down at her thighs she wonders how fast she can run a mile now. Smirking, she narrows her eyes and pokes at her mouth. Her teeth look normal, but she knows they can change at will. 

She can change at will. It’s everything she’s wanted and feared. 

Slipping her clothes on, she heads down stairs. There’s only one question on her mind. 

Well, no, there’s a million questions, but one first.

-

Her dad and Luke both look up when she walks in. 

She’s in her dad’s arm in less than 10 seconds, and she’s never realised how comforting he smells like. 

Luke smiles at her and touches her wrist but doesn’t try anything else with her dad around. It makes her smile back. 

Settling at the kitchen table, she grabs some bacon and more bacon, and some eggs. She’s about to take her first bit when she asks.

“So what colour am I?”

-

She thought her dad had smelled like worry and fear before.


End file.
